


The Ones Who Stop You Falling from Your Ladder

by Sara Generis (kanadka)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Bullying, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 21:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7239514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/Sara%20Generis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amelia has to work with slimy snake Laurinitis on a History project. It's a good thing he has her. He needs her help in more ways than one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ones Who Stop You Falling from Your Ladder

**Author's Note:**

> This began as an excuse to write filthy Liet/fem!Ame smut and derailed. It derailed _a lot_.
> 
> Patrice Ndomo is Cameroon, Vel is Seychelles, Ray Bhatia is India, Steinsvik is Norway. Everybody else is I think already known.
> 
> Thanks to The Heavy for pinch-hitting me the title, since I can't title very well!

If there could be a single word to describe the young witch Amelia Jones, she’d like it to be ‘hero’.

Her cousin might tell you the word was slow. (You mustn’t listen to her cousin. Alice Kirkland only _thinks_ she knows it all.)

Contrary to popular belief and Alice’s anecdotes, it was _not_ lagging behind and being hit by a stray Bludger that sent her to the hospital wing. No, she had moved on purpose, to block the thing from hitting her friend Patrice Ndomo. If it’s the case that Laurinitis did it on purpose - Ndomo is the Gryffindor star Chaser, after all - then Amelia’s glad she stopped it from putting Ndomo out of service for the Gryffindor-Slytherin game. And if that’s not the case, then it’s still not Ndomo’s fault that Laurinitis has no aim! Amelia’s timely intervention saved the day no matter what!

Well, that was probably what had happened.

Amelia did not actually have any recollection of the incident (head wounds, and all) so Alice’s was the first account she heard, since Alice was the first person she saw, when she woke up days later, having walked into the line of fire of Laurinitis’ shoddy excuse for fair play in the Slytherin-Hufflepuff game.

But Amelia’s pretty sure her version of the tale is how it went.

“You missed a reading assignment in Advanced Runes,” Alice supplied, “and there’s an essay due Monday.” It was presently Wednesday. Great, now she’d be in all weekend! “And Professor Helmfrid announced the project, so we’ve all picked groups.”

“Didja save a spot for me?” Amelia asked, and Alice averted her eyes. “You didn’t! And then you came here to make fun? Man, you’re the worst cousin ever!”

“It’s not like I didn’t try!” Alice complained. “But there was a reorganization on the other side and everybody’s already gone into threes or fours. I’m with Vel, Hassan and Bhatia.”

Vel and Hassan! “I’m your cousin,” Amelia grumbled. “You pick a pair of snakes over your own cousin?”

“They asked if they could join! And you wouldn’t want to study what we wanted to anyway. And they’re hard workers, Vel got an O-level O.W.L. in History last year. _And_ they’re not lazy slow lie-a-beds like _someone_ I know.”

“I am not _slow_ ,” she protested. 

“Velocity-challenged, then. You can join one of the three-groups.”

–

When Amelia came to class later that day, she was pleased to see Laurinitis off to the side, alone, reading quietly all by himself. Served him right!

But what Alice had neglected to tell Amelia, and what Helmfrid gleefully informed her of, was that singles were disallowed, and would she please find something to study with the young master Laurinitis, three-groups be damned.

Loner, she thought scornfully. Teams of three could accept him as a fourth but nobody had, on Slytherin and certainly not on Gryffindor. Maybe if he could smack a decent Bludger ( _away_ from the audience??) they’d like him better.

–

For a snake, Laurinitis wasn’t so bad, because he was quiet and kept to himself. She knew he came from somewhere in Eastern Europe originally but had only a weak trace of accent on z’s and th’s. If he weren’t an only child then his siblings, at least, did not attend Hogwarts.

In first year he’d been a scrawny, easily-picked on sort and Amelia had wondered how someone like that managed not to fall apart in a snake-eat-snake dungeon like Slytherin House. But survive he did, and his patience paid off when he grew like a weed in fourth year and tried out for the Quidditch team in fifth at practically everyone’s insistence. Nothing said instant friends like not being a benchwarmer, but Laurinitis obviously didn’t like attention, because he never stuck around to gloat like the rest of the Snake Squad whenever they won and he didn’t have any other group members in History.

He had friends, she knew, he must have, you couldn’t do it all alone, but now that she thought of it, she couldn’t bring to mind a face or a name.

She didn’t like him much either, but that was because he was a Slytherin and every Gryffindor hates Slytherins. Well. _This_  Gryffindor did.

However, she would admit under duress that he was handsome. Objectively. Y'know, for a snake. Quidditch helped.

Judging by the biceps and breadth he sported nowadays, which hadn’t existed when they were Sorted, Quidditch really helped.

“Hi,” she said awkwardly, and plunked her rucksack on the desk. Laurinitis grunted a greeting without looking up, too absorbed in his book, open to a gory-looking diagram.

“So,” she announced. “What’re we studying?”

“Squibs,” he replied, and she pulled a face. 

“What? Why? That’s the most boring subject I can think of.”

“It’s not open for debate,” said Laurinitis coldly. “This project is on Squibs. You can take it or leave it. I’d prefer you leave it.”

“I don’t have a choice, idiot!” she retorted. “Helmfrid told me to come over here and join you.”

“Then I guess it’s Squibs, isn’t it?” he sneered.

Amelia folded her arms across her chest and huffed. “Squibs,” she muttered. “Why can’t we study something far out like aliens? You know, the Minister is hiding something!”

Laurinitis did not reply.

She huffed again and picked up one of the books. Squibs. Rotten luck! “Fine,” she grumbled. “What is it about Squibs in particular we’re studying?”

“How they get made,” Laurinitis snapped. “What d'you think? I doubt you want to study how they _live_ ,” and he gestured to the print of the ugly-looking fellow being broken upon the wheel.

She grimaced. “Gory stuff.”

“You don’t have to be here.”

“Actually, I do.”

“Which is _your_ problem, not mine.”

“It’s entirely your fault and you know it! You can’t hit a Bludger worth a damn!”

“You can’t _dodge_  one worth a damn!”

“Good grief!” she ground out, “I’m not surprised you have no friends!”

Laurinitis looked up at her, threw her a filthy look, then slammed his book shut. He rose from his chair with the book and moved to a seat on the other side of the room, where he proceeded to reopen the book and finish his reading, leaving Amelia to cough in his cloud of kicked-up book-dust.

Snakes! If only they could ship them all off to Mars! Amelia spent the rest of the period fuming in silence, too angry to read much of the text that she pretended to be involved in until the sound of other students packing up woke up a dozing Professor Helmfrid from his seat behind the desk at the front of the room. “Next class are due the progress reports,” he reminded in a drone, “you are dismissed.”

Amelia turned to bother Laurinitis about this fact but the chair where he was seated was vacant and he was nowhere in the classroom.

–

The last thing Amelia felt like doing for the next two days was search out Laurinitis to solidify a progress report for Helmfrid’s History project, so she ignored it and set it to the back of her mind. In the time being she was busy enough with the Ancient Runes reading and essay, as well as her problem set for Astronomy.

She had intended on stopping him Saturday evening after dinner but one thing led to another and before too long she was immersed in a heated conversation with Ndomo about Blue-Winged Loggerheads and the dangers to society, or at least to his herbology project. That boy, seriously. Couldn’t be bothered to look out for Bludgers and didn’t know how to fend off a Loggerhead infestation, either. It was amazing he had survived his childhood without Amelia’s heroic assistance.

When she looked over to the snakes’ table, Laurinitis was nowhere to be found. Didn’t even stick around for dessert! No wonder he was so bitter.

Sunday morning she made her way to the Great Hall to track Laurinitis down. She wasn’t early, there were plenty of people at the Gryffindor table and Slytherin table but somehow lots of room between Laurinitis and everybody else. Like they’d rather sit anywhere but near him. To be fair, Laurinitis wasn’t inviting company with his slumped shoulders and angry glower, as though the porridge had personally offended him.

That’s what happens when you’re too busy knocking out _members of the audience_  to play the game right, she thought angrily, although she couldn’t answer why Slytherins would be upset that a Slytherin had knocked out a Gryffindor “accidentally”.

She helped herself to toast and jam and pumpkin juice before she felt ready to make the trek over to Slytherin table, but when she had looked up again, Laurinitis was gone.

This is getting foolish, she thought. There were no Quidditch games scheduled today… Early practice?

But his teammates were all there. Crappy Beater or not, why would he have left before them?

Enough was enough. She left the table to approach Wang, Seeker and Captain of the Slytherin team. “Hey,” she said. “Where’d Laurinitis go?”

Wang’s lips curled in an ugly sneer. “Who knows? And anyway, who wants to know?”

“I’m in an assignment with him, I need to talk to him about a class thing,” she explained. “Can’t you get him for me?”

“Don’t know where he is,” Wang shrugged. “And don’t care.”

“Thanks for your help,” Amelia snapped.

She didn’t manage to find Laurinitis at all that day, which was good news for her Runes coursework at least.

–

Monday there was a quiz in Potions announced for the next day, so Monday night was spent studying with Alice, whose skills in Potions (and most things) exceeded her own. Tuesday came and went and she was walking up the stairs with Ndomo when Laurinitis passed them. She only recognised him as he passed, his head down and hair covering his face made him difficult to pick out from a crowd.

She told Ndomo she would catch up with her later, and took off in the other direction towards Laurinitis. “Hold up!” she cried, bumping into a first year who didn’t sidestep fast enough.

But Laurinitis not only did not wait, he walked faster away from her, knocking into people to get away. She watched him nearly bowl over Beilschmidt, and as he fled past, Beilschmidt checked him into the railing, snapping something harsh she couldn’t hear.

Laurinitis caught the rails with a hand but his rucksack wasn’t so lucky and spilled over the other side, tumbling his quills and ink pots and books three flights down.

Well that wasn’t very nice. But Beilschmidt was a seventh-year, they were all like that, uptight about N.E.W.Ts or something.

But Beilschmidt was a seventh-year Slytherin, what was he doing picking on his own people?

Laurinitis looked down at the bag, its contents swimming in a slowly-growing black puddle.

“Maybe you can get someone else to levitate it back up again," Beilschmidt jeered, "since I hear you can’t do it yourself -”

And Laurinitis turned around and punched him in the jaw.

Beilschmidt cried out in pain, his hands over his mouth, then went beet red and angry and decked Laurinitis with a chop to the nose. And from there a proper brawl began, and the students around them backed up but hung about on the edges of a circle, shouting 'get him!’ or 'in the face!’

With that kind of ruckus it wasn’t long until a prefect arrived, and sure enough Steinsvik - a theoretically impartial seventh-year Ravenclaw - appeared on scene within thirty seconds. He took one look at the two boys, their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders in an attempt to pin the other to the ground or the railing, whatever to make them hold still so they could punch their lights out.

Steinsvik calmly took out his wand and shot sparks in the air with a loud bang. The crowd dispersed a bit and Laurinitis and Beilschmidt broke apart.

“What is the _meaning_  of this?” spat Steinsvik.

“He broke my nose!" Beilschmidt said, "and tried to knock me out! Little savage. It runs in his blood, I tell you!”

Laurinitis, his lip split and bleeding, didn’t say anything.

“Twenty-five points from Slytherin,” Steinsvik declared.

“Give it to him, at least, he started it!”

“I didn’t,” mumbled Laurinitis.

“ _Twenty-five points_  from Slytherin for inciting a rabble, Laurinitis, and five points from Slytherin for telling a prefect what to do, Beilschmidt,” Steinsvik ground out.

Whether he deserved it or not for being a jerk, he hadn’t started it and that wasn’t fair. “That’s not true!” Amelia said. “Beilschmidt threw his rucksack and destroyed all his stuff, he didn’t start _anything_ -”

Laurinitis threw her a dirty look from the landing below, as did Beilschmidt (which she had expected), and Steinsvik (which she had not). “And _ten points_  from Gryffindor for getting involved when it wasn’t necessary,” Steinsvik said sternly. Amelia shut up with a sulk and he continued his diatribe against the two boys. “I’m appalled you didn’t start with hexes. Fists! Like cavemen, or Muggles! And you lot call yourselves wizards.”

“Only some of us rightly can," Beilschmidt mumbled.

Laurinitis had turned away but upon hearing that flew into a frenzy and whirled around. With a strained yell he threw himself fists-first at Beilschmidt to grab him by the throat.

Steinsvik whipped out his wand and shot an Expelliarmus and Stupefy in rapid succession. Laurinitis fell to the ground unconscious. "You, get yourself cleaned up,” he said to Beilschmidt, “I’ll bring him to the hospital wing.”

“Watch you don’t _catch anything_ , be a shame to lose power in a N.E.W.T year,” someone in the crowd sneered. Steinsvik ignored it, but Amelia thought when he did levitate Laurinitis away, it was at a larger distance than strictly necessary.

Amelia supposed, if she wanted to make herself helpful, she’d go rescue what was left of Laurinitis’ things. He was a jerk, sure, but he hadn’t deserved that.

–

Wednesday in class Laurinitis - who seemed no worse for wear after a stay in the medical wing besides an even more sullen disposition - spoke up only when Professor Helmfrid came along to inquire about their progress. He had a partial report - the remainder painted black - and made no effort to hide how little Amelia had done.

“Miss Jones,” Helmfrid said, looking down his long nose at her with great distaste. “Such behaviour is not becoming of someone who wishes to pass my class, or indeed, sixth-year at all.” And there was nothing much she could say because it wasn’t untrue, but she’d been _busy_ \- but he would probably say that was an excuse and it was wiser to keep her mouth shut before he docked points to Gryffindor for her back-talk.

She turned to Laurinitis the moment Helmfrid left them to lecture at another group. “I tried to find you _all weekend_ and you were _nowhere around_ ,” she spat.

“I assumed if you’d wanted to help you might have checked the library,” Laurinitis returned, “you know, that place where students often go to study? If you’d been by you would’ve found me _there!_ ”

Oh. Amelia hadn’t thought of that. Well whatever, it was more likely that a snake like him would hang around in his creepy dungeon. “What the hell is your problem?” she asked.

“You not picking up the slack on this project is my problem!” he said. “You think I’ll do _all_  the work while you sit and play ponies and chat with your little friends and dressup in fancy lady-clothes so that you can get a free ride for grades!”

“That’s not it at all!” cried Amelia. “I’d be perfectly willing to do work if my only group member wasn’t so abhorrent! Besides, even if the company was decent - which it isn’t because why would it be with a _Slytherin_  -” Laurinitis’ face warped into an ugly grimace - “it’s a boring topic and I _don’t_  want to work on it.”

“'It’s a booooring tooopic’,” Laurinitis said, in falsetto, “'and I doooon’t want to wooork on it!’ God bless the Gryffindors and their simple ways,” he sneered. “If only things were truly so easy, because you don’t have a choice. These things happen to real people in real life! Can’t you imagine feeling powerless in a powerful world, surrounded by people who insist they’re your betters and who’ll enforce it in ways you can’t? Think about _that_  for a change!”

Try as she might to hold it in, Amelia felt her eyes prickle and her nose start to sting, the first symptoms of frustrated crying. “Stop picking on me,” she said. “Just because you’re getting bullied doesn’t give you the right to harass others!”

Laurinitis watched one hot tear to roll down her cheek before he shook his head. He hissed across the table, “You’re _so weak!_ ” Then he picked his hastily-stitched together rucksack and stormed out of class.

Nobody watched him go and for a moment Amelia breathed herself back to normal, using the best of her willpower to dispel her anger, and then when she felt more like herself, she looked up to her cousin sitting across from her, where Laurinitis had been, with her group members standing awkwardly off to one side. “I’m sorry he’s such a _beast_ ,” Alice said, and she looked it. “I really didn’t think he’d be this bad.”

“I’m sure if we explained the situation, Helmfrid would understand,” said Bhatia.

“Tough tits to explaining anything,” snapped Vel, “you can’t let him walk all over you like that, it’s wrong! You should just leave and join our team. We’ll bring you up to speed in about three hours, it’d be okay. And he can fail on his lonesome.”

“Maybe,” Amelia said. And she glared at the desk, at her preliminary notes on Squibs. What a boring topic, anyway! And Laurinitis was _such_  a jerk, what was his problem, seriously.

–

Lukasiewiez - who had become Feliks after they had suffered Herbology together - found her just before dinner. “So like I know we don’t talk too often,” he began, “but I just gotta say, if Toris makes you cry again, I’m gonna make _him_  cry.”

“Oh my god, does _everyone_  know that I cried in class?” moaned Amelia.

“No! Not everyone! I just know because, well, I like know _everything_. And I was talking to Alice, and - anyway. He’s being a complete asshat - excuse me - but he is! And honestly, he’s not usually like this! You have to believe me.”

“I didn’t realise you two were such good friends,” she replied. “How’d you meet him? You’re in Hufflepuff.”

Feliks huffed. “Hey, am I not allowed to have friends in other houses? I talk to you two, don’t I?

"Yeah, but we’re nice. And T- Laurinitis is a prick.”

“Okay, I know he’s like channelling his inner hogweed right now but… well …” Feliks looked side to side and, although the entry way to the Great Hall was mostly empty, took her by the hand and led her behind a corner. “Sorry,” he said, “that painting down there is a total gossip. And Toris has enough to deal with. Anyway, he has two brothers.”

“Good for him,” Amelia snorted, “I’ve got a sister. What’s your point?”

“Well so he’s like the eldest, right? And when they came to England the middle one got a Hogwarts letter, and three more for other schools with like full paid scholarships, so he’s off somewhere in one of those. And the last one …” Feliks looked away. “The last one didn’t even get a Hogwarts letter when he turned eleven this year. Nothing. And he hasn’t been showing any signs, although they took him to like doctor after doctor starting forever ago and it’s just - it’s a problem that’s never gone away. It’s a problem that’s not ever gonna go away.”

Amelia put it together. “So his brother …”

“So Toris has this stupid idea that maybe if he just focuses all his studies and research on everything Squib, he can somehow save his littlest brother.”

Amelia shook her head. “I don’t think it works that way.”

“Don’t you? So many people don’t know how it works at all, it’s just not something that’s talked about, you know? Some people think it’s a disease that can spread and Toris is some kinda leper or like whatever and he’s gonna infect us all.”

“That’s ridiculous!” she said. But it explained why nobody wanted to sit near him, why nobody liked him, why people said the things they did about him, why not even a seventh-year really understood how it worked…

“Anyway, that’s what everybody’s been talking about since the start of the year,” Feliks finished. “But if I could ask you a favour?”

“Anything,” Amelia said, expecting to be sworn to secrecy.

“Keep working with him. Like he _will_ warm up to you, I swear! You just have to … I dunno. Not treat him like others’ve been treating him. Not that I think you would! But - Amelia,” Feliks whispered, “he’s _failing all his classes_. He can’t concentrate. He’s gonna lose his position on the Quidditch team if he doesn’t like keep his head on straight and stop shooting at the _crowd_ but he can’t do it alone.”

So when Amelia sat down hesitantly, next to Alice and Ray Bhatia who immediately asked her if she’d thought about the History project already, she said, “I won’t quit now, quitting isn’t what winners do. I’ll just show him up and do a better job than he does, is all.” And pretended not to watch Laurinitis sullenly eating a scant few mouthfuls of soup, isolated and separated from the rest of the table by two seats either side of him, before he took off again.

She found out later that night that he got put in the hospital wing for a night after breaking an arm. 'Beating too hard’, said the rumours.

He won’t be playing the next game, they said.

So Amelia spent all weekend studying Squibs.


End file.
